


thirty days

by cassiem



Category: Block B
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, idk how to tag this lmao taeil sells phones and jihoon is a businessman, if you cry i'm doing my job right, pain and sadness and suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7345477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiem/pseuds/cassiem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s never been so aware of time before, never had the distinct feeling that it’s slipping through his fingers like sand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thirty days

 

 _Without you I cannot be_  
_Without you_  
_With you I am alone too_  
_Without you_  
_Without you I count the hours without you_  
_With you the seconds stand still_  
_They aren't worth it_

_Ohne Dich – Rammstein_

_4 3 2 0 0_

_This is how it happened: a twist, a stumble, as easy as that – Jihoon’s skinny ankle gave way underneath him and sent him careening towards the road. Taeil had always warned him to be careful, had always joked that with as lanky as Jihoon was a certain clumsiness always came with it, but Jihoon had never listened and had continued to rush around like he didn’t have a care in the world. And, Taeil supposed, he didn’t._

_Taeil was frozen in place, his mouth open in a soundless scream as he watched Jihoon tilt forward, watched as his arms cartwheeled in slow motion. There was only the briefest moment between the two of them, Jihoon looking up at Taeil (a thought, unbidden and unwanted, reminded him that it was wrong, that it should be Taeil looking up at Jihoon always, always) in shock. His eyes widened as he realised what happened – and then the car hit him._

_Afterwards Taeil did chest compressions on Jihoon’s lifeless body for what seemed like hours but was really only minutes, only belatedly realising that he’d never done this outside of the one first aid course he’d taken back in high school, nearly ten years ago. It was useless, he knew it was, but Jihoon’s warmth was being leeched away into the asphalt underneath his body and Taeil couldn’t stand it, he couldn’t fucking process that Jihoon was dead and gone and not breathing, oh god, why wasn’t he breathing? Why wouldn’t he start breathing?_

_And then he breathed._

_  
_ _4 1 7 6 0_

“I hate hospitals,” Jihoon mutters, looking out the window of the car, his eyebrows furrowed.

It’s a rainy day in Seoul, so rainy that Taeil has to turn his wipers on as fast as they go, and he’s hunched over the steering wheel like looking like some kind of gremlin will help him see better. Traffic is shit, as it always is when it rains, and he looks over at Jihoon and bites back a smile.

“The thing I hate the most, I think, is the antiseptic smell,” Taeil replies, feeling the oddest sense of déjà vu, like he’s had this conversation before. “It sticks to your hair and everything. I need a shower.” 

Jihoon looks over at him and grins, his whole face lighting up, and Taeil’s hands clench involuntarily on the steering wheel. They both know what that smile does to his insides and sometimes Taeil thinks Jihoon enjoys driving him mad. “Just step outside,” Jihoon says, gesturing through the windshield at the absolutely apocalyptic rain. “You’ll get wet enough.”

Taeil almost opens his mouth to call him an asshole before _remembering_ , realising that that’s probably not very nice of him, and he has to be nice now. He doesn’t want all of this to be tainted by bad memories, after all. Instead, he rolls his eyes and reaches down to flick on the radio, comforted by the sounds of GFRIEND warbling through the radio at them. “We should do something nice for dinner,” he says abstractly, because they should. “Roses, candles, the whole shebang. Make it romantic and shit.”

Time is precious, after all. He realises that now more than ever.

 

_4 0 3 2 0_

Taeil wakes up to Jihoon wrapped around him like a limpet and has to crawl out of bed slowly – ever so slowly, moving an inch at a time so that he doesn’t wake – to go to the bathroom and cry. It’s the ugly sort of crying that he’s been doing a lot of lately (for obvious reasons), sobs that wrack through him cruelly and leave him shaking and cold in their wake. He keeps a hand clapped over his mouth the entire time, biting down on his palm so hard that when he looks he’s drawn blood, the crimson against his pale skin startling him into lucidity.

He needs to grow up and move on. Jihoon is out there in the huge bed alone, and Taeil should be next to him, holding him, _feeling_ him. All he’s doing when he’s wallowing in self pity is creating more pain, multiplying it over and over in powers of tens that make his head spin, and he’s had enough pain to last a lifetime or two.

So he slides off the toilet, where he’d been curled on the closed lid, and splashes cold water on his face. It’s painfully obvious he’s been crying, but Jihoon isn’t at his most perceptive in the mornings so it’s with little concern that he returns to the bed, slipping in behind Jihoon and pressing his face to the hollow between his shoulder blades. Jihoon is so damn _warm_ , and when he stirs and rolls over to face Taeil they both have dopey grins on their faces, high on the feelings of their love for each other.

 

_3 7 4 4 0_

It’s still raining – they both sit in front of a window in their apartment and stare out at the deluge for a while – so Taeil convinces Jihoon to skip work. They fuck all morning until they’re both sore and satiated, and then Jihoon suggests going to the museum and Taeil can only laugh.

The exhibition on at the moment is one titled _Time Through the Ages_ , which seems redundant in Taeil’s eyes, but he buys them both tickets on his laptop begrudgingly. It’s unlike Jihoon to get so cultural, and he knows he has to appreciate it, but the irony is not lost on him. They hold hands the whole way there in the car, Jihoon’s thumb stroking across Taeil’s colourful knuckles, and Taeil finds it hard to let go once they get there, making the mad dash across the street to the museum entrance.

Once they’re inside they both separate and wander around to look at the exhibits. It’s hardly the most scintillating thing Taeil’s ever seen (if you asked him he’d much rather be at the aquarium, but when he’d suggested it Jihoon had rolled his eyes and said “again?” so Taeil had, wisely, dropped it) but it’s interesting to a point. It’s only until his eyes fix on an old-fashioned hourglass, carved of a dark wood with mother-of-pearl inlay (some king or nobleman’s, no doubt), that it hits him all in a rush. Time. _Time_. He’s surrounded by it – they both are, he can see Jihoon engrossed in an interactive exhibit on the mechanics of an early clock – but he’s never felt it move so fast like now. After all, aren’t life changing events meant to do that? He’s never been so aware of time before, never had the distinct feeling that it’s slipping through his fingers like sand. 

He turns away from the hourglass and goes to find Jihoon, backs him against the wall and kisses him right there, kisses away his protests _(Hyung, we’re in public, hyung, come on someone could_ see _, Taeil hyung)_ because he needs to burn away that terrible cold dread. 

 _  
_ _3 0 2 4 0_

The rain has finally, _finally_ abated, so Taeil makes Jihoon skip work again and goes shopping for picnic materials. They haven’t done this in years, since they first started dating – only then they brought their food in shitty plastic bags from the takeout on campus and ate on the library lawn – and Jihoon teases Taeil sweetly.

“Are you getting sentimental in your old age?” he asks, leaning his elbows on the bench and blinking up at Taeil, snagging a grape from the bunch that Taeil shoves in the basket and popping it in his mouth. 

Taeil rolls his eyes. “Fuck off, I’m only twenty-six. That’s hardly _old_.”

“I’ll have to get you a cane for your birthday,” Jihoon continues around the grape, his eyes creasing up as he smiles. “And a wheelchair. I wonder what your tattoos will look like when you get old?”

Something about the innocence in Jihoon’s voice makes Taeil’s breath hitch in his throat, although he doesn’t show anything outwardly and just continues packing the food. “Probably how everyone else’s skin looks when they get old. Gross and wrinkly.”

Jihoon shakes his head at that. “Nah. You’ll still be hot. Even when you lose all your hair and have to wear glasses for real.”

Taeil doesn’t have the heart to argue.

 _  
_ _2 7 3 6 0_

They’re drinking themselves silly on the living room floor, telling stupid stories from their uni days and cracking up at nothing and everything, when Taeil realises that he loves Jihoon too fucking much to let him go, fuck. Everything that’s happened to them has just brought them closer together, and for the first time in his life he finds he actually craves Jihoon on a deeper level than what they have now, if such a thing was even possible.

“Jihoon,” Taeil croons, placing his hand on Jihoon’s cheek and tilting his head towards him. “Jihoonie, look at me. I love you.” 

Jihoon shuffles a little closer, so he’s practically in Taeil’s lap, and with how tall and gangly he is that’s an achievement. “I love you too,” he replies, sounding soft and dreamy and altogether too far away for Taeil’s tastes.

“No, I _love_ you. Really really love you,” Taeil insists, although he’s aware that he’s sounding ridiculous even to his ears.

“I love you _too_ ,” Jihoon says more vehemently this time, putting his drink down to slide his arms around Taeil’s neck and tug him closer. “I always have and I always will. Until I die.”

That cuts too close to home for Taeil, and he wants to protest, wants to _tell_ Jihoon – but he simply doesn’t have the words, and even if he did it would be too painful in the wake of all that’s happened. What they’ve been through, the both of them, has been enough for now. So he just shakes his head, although he’s not sure why, and leans up to kiss Jihoon hungrily, pushing into Jihoon with such insistence that they tip over backwards onto the rug.

Taeil plants an arm on one side of Jihoon’s head and lifts himself up so he can look at Jihoon, and finds him gazing reverently upward like Taeil is the sun, drinking him in. He doesn’t know if he likes that, so he just brushes Jihoon’s hair out of his eyes and cups his cheek gently, his thumb skimming over Jihoon’s cheekbone. There’s so much love there between them that it may as well be a third person in the room for all the weight it carries; he finds he can’t take it, not in the dim light with Jihoon framed so beautifully like this. So he just kisses Jihoon again, feeling him open up underneath him, and allows himself the small luxury of forgetting about time entirely to lose himself in the feel of Jihoon.

 _  
_ _2 3 0 4 0_

“Let’s go somewhere for the weekend,” Taeil blurts.

They’re in a coffee shop, because Jihoon is on a coffee kick and has gone from hating the stuff to loving it. Well, it’s a work in progress, and he still has to dump five sugars in already milky coffee – he’d made such a face when he’d sipped Taeil’s long black that Taeil had gotten a stitch from laughing so hard – but he’s trying. Their local shop knows their order by now, so they’re just sitting there, Jihoon scrolling through something on his phone and Taeil watching him quietly.

Jihoon puts his phone down and raises his eyebrow. “Where?”

“Japan?” Taeil suggests, even though it’s extravagant and his initial thought had been to go to somewhere close, or maybe even to the beach. But it’s cherry blossom season, and he finds he wants to see Jihoon framed underneath an alley of trees heavy with petals, so he shrugs.

“Japan?” Jihoon echoes, looking doubtful. “Why the hell would you want to go there? Can we even afford it?” 

With Jihoon working as a businessman in his father’s company and Taeil busting his ass at the local electronics store, their combined finances aren’t exactly what you could call plentiful. But they can afford to splurge, and this is what this trip would be, so Taeil nods. “Course we can. It’d be pretty.”

There’s a multitude of reasons that he’s not revealing to Jihoon as well, beyond _it’d be pretty_. He is ever-aware of time pressing in on him like a physical entity, circling its fingers around his neck, its breath ghosting over his cheek, reminding him, always reminding him, of how fragile this is. How easily it could be broken. How either of them could –

No. He can’t think of that, and he shakes his head as if to chase the thoughts away but then realises it looks like he’s shaking his head to whatever Jihoon is saying, which turns out to be, “alright, but can we _please_ get exit row seats? It’s alright for you having to fold yourself into origami, but it’s damn near impossible for me.”

“Yeah, of course,” Taeil replies, leaning forward to steal a sip from Jihoon’s drink and screwing up his face at the syrupy sweetness. “Anything for you.”

He laces the words with more affection than strictly necessary, and he knows it’s a sign of how far they’ve come that Jihoon doesn’t even shoot him a look, or say _hyung, stop it, you’re so sappy_. Time is so, so precious, and Taeil doesn’t want to waste even a second of it on anything but the love between them. So, shifting in his seat to pull out his phone, he shoots Jihoon a wide grin and marvels at how easy it is to pretend that everything is alright.

 

_2 0 1 6 0_

Taeil spends most of his time these days watching Jihoon, drinking in his features and committing them to memory. He wishes he could draw, could at least put an accurate recreation of Jihoon on paper, but as it is the only thing he can draw is a fish, and even that badly, so he has to rely on his mind. The plane roars away around them, sending them hurtling through the sky at mind-boggling speed, but that all fades away when he looks at Jihoon. He wonders, abstractly, when the fuck they got like this and so quickly, when they went from friends to lovers to – to this, with Jihoon’s every touch telling Taeil he never wants to be parted from him. Perhaps it’s a logical response to the trauma they’ve both been through, but it feels so new and fresh it’s like they’ve just started dating all over again.

Instead of drawing Jihoon, he pulls out and leans over to take a photo, posing stupidly next to Jihoon’s lolling head. Taeil’s pretty sure he’s drooling a little bit, and he pulls back to laugh at him, but clips Jihoon’s jaw with his shoulder, waking him instantly. Jihoon, in his half-asleep state, blinks blearily at Taeil, blinks blearily at the phone, before reaching for it in a half-hearted grab that Taeil easily blocks.

“Hyung,” Jihoon whines, his voice gravelly from sleep. “Come on.”

“No,” Taeil replies stubbornly, holding the phone out of reach.

Jihoon reaches for it, practically leaping out of his seat and nearly crushing Taeil in the process. Taeil retaliates by kicking Jihoon on the shin, which just encourages him further, and he undoes his seatbelt to practically crawl over the seat towards Taeil. They end up squabbling for it so violently that the flight attendant rushes towards them worriedly, panicking that they’re brawling for real, only to see Jihoon bashing Taeil over the head with his pillow repeatedly, Taeil giggling uncontrollably. She manages to separate them, scolding them all the while the other passengers look on in barely-disguised horror. All the while that she’s saying _sirs, if you don’t behave we will have to arrest you and divert to the nearest airport to detain you_ all Taeil and Jihoon can do is look at each other and grin.

 

_1 8 7 2 0_

For a moment – one brief, blissful moment – time slows down around them. The petals stop falling, the people around them stop walking, and there’s just the two of them. Jihoon is looking up at one tree that’s particularly laden with blossoms, his sunglasses resting low on his nose, and when he looks back at Taeil and beckons him closer, he’s wearing a grin so wide that Taeil can’t help but smile back as he ambles over.

The moment Jihoon’s hand closes around his time starts up again, and Taeil blinks upward at the tree, so heavily laden with petals it looks like its branches are sagging underneath the weight of them. All around them are other couples doing the exact same as them, walking hand in hand along the street and peering upwards into the trees. It gives him an air of confidence that he normally wouldn’t have in public, and he pushes himself up on his toes to kiss Jihoon on the cheek.

“It’s so beautiful,” Jihoon sighs, but when Taeil looks up Jihoon isn’t looking upward at the trees, he’s looking down at Taeil himself.

And he finds himself blushing. Amazing how he can still blush after, what, three years together? Four? Curious how time slips away from him even now. Jihoon squeezes his hand gently, bending down to kiss Taeil on the forehead, and he feels so fucking content and at peace, like nothing in the whole world can hurt them here like this. It’s a feeling he hasn’t felt for a while, not since – not since a few weeks ago, where it had all come crashing down.

“Did it pay off?” Taeil asks, closing his eyes and inhaling, smelling the subtle, barely-there fragrance of the trees. “The trip, I mean. Worth it?”

Jihoon just nudges him with his elbow gently. “With you? Always. You know that.”

Before Taeil can sink into the words, let them swim and eddy around his brain, Jihoon’s tugging him along wordlessly, Taeil having to practically jog to keep up. He’s just about to tell Jihoon to slow down, can they go get a coffee and maybe some cake or something because he’s _starving,_ when Jihoon slips on some petals and falls over.

It’s fast (why does time _do_ that?), so fast that Taeil blinks and one moment Jihoon is on his feet and the next he’s on his hands and knees on the ground, pale and shaky and breathing hard. The memories of – of the crash, of everything, are still raw for the both of them and Taeil hooks one hand under Jihoon’s elbow and pulls him to his feet, drawing him away from the crowd towards a bench. He sits Jihoon down and holds his hands, whispering sweet nothings to him, trying to draw him back from that dark place that he goes to sometimes. What must he have seen, when he _died?_ Taeil can’t comprehend, doesn’t want to know. So he just whispers and kisses Jihoon’s knuckles over and over until Jihoon is back, looking pale but offering Taeil a weak smile.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” Taeil murmurs, placing his hands on either side of Jihoon’s face as if to say _you’re here, I’ve got you, I won’t let that happen again, you’re safe with me._ “We can get some champagne and have a bubble bath or something equally as tacky.”

“Don’t forget the candles,” Jihoon mutters in reply, but his eyes are lighting up and Taeil knows he’s alright.

 _  
_ _1 4 4 0 0_

It’s Tuesday, which means it’s another shitty day at work for the both of them. Taeil recites his spiel about the latest Samsung phone and its qualities all morning until he’s sick and tired of talking about the 12 megapixel camera and added warranty. But because it’s Tuesday, it also means that he and Jihoon are going to get lunch together like they do every Tuesday. So the moment the clock ticks over to 1:30 he hangs up his lanyard and practically skips out of the store and down the road to the little park where they meet.

Jihoon is already there, munching on a sandwich and reading something on his phone, and Taeil walks straight up to him and slides onto his lap, his thighs bracketing Jihoon’s own. Before Jihoon can even protest Taeil leans down and kisses him square on the mouth, his hands fisting in Jihoon’s hair, tugging him closer.

“Hyung,” Jihoon says lowly, his breath ghosting on Taeil’s cheek. “Hyung, we’re in public, come on.” 

“I don’t care,” Taeil replies, kissing Jihoon again, kissing him until he goes complacent and soft underneath Taeil’s hands. Life is too fucking short to worry about what others think, he’s realised, and if he wants to make out with Jihoon like his life depends on it – well, he’s going to, decency be damned. And soon Jihoon is reaching for him, too, pulling him closer so they’re flush and heaving and not giving a damn that they’re in broad daylight, in public, only having eyes for each other.

 

_1 1 5 2 0_

It was Jihoon’s idea to go to a drive-in movie theater. Taeil had initially rolled his eyes but Jihoon had pouted and whined and done everything but get down on his hands and knees to beg, so he had to rescind. It’s mostly showboating, though, and the both of them know it, but that’s the role they’ve always played – Jihoon grinning and rushing forward, Taeil rolling his eyes and following begrudgingly, only later picking up on Jihoon’s excitement.

They bicker playfully the whole way there, Jihoon complaining that they should have taken his Mercedes (a gift from his father) because it’s less _gaudy_ , and Taeil pointing out the hundreds of ways his Jeep is superior. Like this, with Jihoon raising an eyebrow archly at him and slapping his hand on the dashboard in disgust _(“come on, hyung, it’s_ plastic _. You can’t compare that to leather with wood trim”)_ , it’s so fucking easy to forget, even if Taeil’s eyes keep glancing over the clock on his dashboard like it can tell him anything beyond the current hour.

They even argue over what snacks to get, although they manage to compromise and get both popcorn for Taeil and three choc tops for Jihoon, who holds them triumphantly aloft and smears chocolate on the roof of Taeil’s jeep.

“How the hell are you going to eat all three of those without them melting?” Taeil asks, looking at Jihoon out of the corner of his eye as he finds a good spot and parks in front of the screen. 

Jihoon shifts in his seat so he’s facing Taeil and waves the ice creams perilously. “Aha, hyung. You don’t know my secret. You eat a bite from each one in turn. And the chocolate sort of insulates it a bit, so they don’t melt that fast anyway. Want some?”

Taeil leans over and takes a massive bite from the nearest one, which happens to be banana flavoured, making Jihoon whine, but he just shrugs. “You didn’t say how much,” he mumbles around the ice cream, deliciously sweet on his tongue, a contrast to the bitterness he’s so used to tasting as of late. 

 

_7 2 0 0_

Taeil is really, really fucking good at pretending, because he doesn’t even flinch when Jihoon suggests they go to Lotte World on a lazy Sunday. It’s so damn easy to bury his head in the sand and pretend that everything is alright, even though Jihoon is starting to clue in that something is off – after all, they’ve done more activities together as a couple in the last few weeks than they have in the past _year_. But then there was Jihoon’s accident, which was bound to change things, to bring them closer together.

That all swirls around in his head as he sits in the passenger seat watching the world go by. Jihoon drives a bit too fast for his tastes, but he supposes beating death once is likely to give you a feeling of invincibility – that, or it could swing the other way, and you could become terrified of everything. Jihoon has landed somewhere in the middle, it seems. 

The moment they get there Taeil makes a beeline for the nearest food stall and buys Jihoon a wad of soft pink cotton candy bigger than his head. Jihoon immediately takes a huge bite, and Taeil nearly falls over from laughing at how long Jihoon has to chew on the long strand he’s picked up, even managing to pull out his phone and get some photos, dancing out of Jihoon’s way. They feed each other the rest of it shamelessly as they wander around, although when they walk past a reflective surface Taeil realises Jihoon has been sprinkling some of it in his hair and as such he has a cotton candy crown; he immediately takes it off and throws it at Jihoon, who just laughs.

In retaliation, Taeil drags Jihoon on the biggest rollercoaster in the damn park, feeling a sense of vindication as Jihoon turns a peculiar shade of green and lets out the girliest scream Taeil has ever heard. In fact, by the time the ride has finished they’re both breathless – Jihoon from screaming and Taeil from laughing at him.

“You’re such an _asshole_ ,” Jihoon growls, reaching for Taeil the moment they’re on solid ground.

Taeil dodges, but he’s not quick enough, because Jihoon wraps his arms around Taeil’s waist and lifts him up, and he’s too damn surprised that Jihoon – skinny and lanky as he is – can even lift him to process what’s happening. “Let me down,” he hiccups, digging his fingers into Jihoon’s ribs, making Jihoon gasp and drop him, shying away from the ticklish touch. 

Perhaps it’s absurd that two grown adult men end up wrestling on the ground in front of a roller coaster, with people stopping to watch like it’s some kind of modern performance art. But Taeil just can’t find it in him to give a shit, not when he finally pins Jihoon down and looks down to see the sunlight hitting his face, making him look luminous and glowing, laughing so hard tears are streaming from his eyes. Taeil realises, right there, that he would do anything to keep that look on Jihoon’s face, and lays his hand on Jihoon’s cheek reverently.

 

_4 3 2 0_

“Hyung? What are you – I have work tomorrow.” 

“I know. Come on, wake up. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“I hate when you give me cryptic answers.”

“I know." 

Taeil’s left it a little late, so he speeds the entire way there, although he figures there’s no chance of cops to be out on the roads in the middle of the night on a Tuesday. Jihoon falls asleep in the passenger seat, his head lolling onto the window, wrapped in a blanket that Taeil had snagged from their bed.

He feels like he’s going mad. His blood is rushing through his veins, pulsating, making everything feel slightly electric under his fingertips, like he’s high. The entire drive there he’s restless, peering up at the sky nervously, looking for the telltale sign of deep black lightening to navy – but by the time it starts to happen they’re nearly there.

“Jihoon,” he murmurs, undoing his seatbelt to lean over and touch Jihoon’s cheek, his forehead, waking him up slowly. “Come on, we’re here.”

Jihoon cracks open one eye and glares at Taeil, although he sits up slowly, albeit begrudgingly. “Where the hell are we? And why did you bring me here in the middle of the night?”

“You’ll _see_. Come on,” Taeil nags, tugging Jihoon’s hand gently.

They’re parked in front of a desolate beach. Taeil’s sure that once the day begins properly it will start to fill with people – they’re in some tourist town, one he hadn’t even bothered to remember the name of as they rolled in – but as it is it’s completely empty, no other souls in sight. The sky over the water is starting to fade into a pale blue, so Taeil leads Jihoon by the hand down onto the sand and sits, tugging Jihoon down next to him and leaning on him once he sits heavily. 

“Hyung…” Jihoon croaks, but Taeil just shakes his head, burying closer to Jihoon, who is still wrapped in the blanket.

They sit in reverent silence as the sun rises, the sky cycling from blue to a burning red to orange to pink in turn, the water reflecting the colours. It’s the single most beautiful thing Taeil has ever seen, but when he looks up to see if Jihoon’s watching he’s looking down at Taeil with the strangest expression, like he isn’t real; slowly, Jihoon touches Taeil’s face in wonder, and Taeil shivers under the weight of that touch. This is bigger than the both of them, and it’s so easy to feel insignificant with the sun hanging heavy and swollen over the water, looming and threatening almost.

“I love you,” Taeil breathes. “Always will. You know that.”

Jihoon closes his eyes and swallows, turning his face towards the sun. “I know.”

 

_2 8 8 0_

Taeil finds himself saying it more and more over the next day or so, and each time Jihoon says it back with a smile, until he finally rolls his eyes and pokes fun at Taeil getting old and sappy, but the smile that Taeil gives him back is strained and even Jihoon can see that. 

He’s ever-aware of time pressing down on the both of them like a vice, squeezing the life out of them slowly, so slowly. But Jihoon is blissfully unaware, and that’s the way it has to stay, so Taeil just curls up on the lounge and watches Jihoon bustle around the apartment, chatting away like everything’s alright, his heart heavy.

 

_1 4 4 0_

“I love you,” Taeil says aloud, although it’s pointless since Jihoon is sleeping and won’t hear it.

He crawls out of bed and heads to the bathroom, leaning on the sink and staring at his own face in the mirror. He’s the same as he’s always been, just the same, even though he knows everything is different now. His reflection twists so it’s laughing at him and he rears back, flees back to the safety of the bed, the safety of _Jihoon_ , and he’s trembling when he gets back into bed.

“I love you,” he repeats, staring at the ceiling and feeling Jihoon’s arms come around him, tugging him closer, safe.

 

_0_

This is how it happens: a twist, a stumble, as easy as that – Jihoon’s skinny ankle giving way underneath him and sending him careening towards the road (a road, the road; not the same road as last time, but a road nonetheless, a road filled with cars rushing past, he hadn’t _thought)_. Taeil had always warned him to be careful, had always joked that with as lanky as Jihoon was a certain clumsiness always came with it, but Jihoon had never listened and had continued to rush around like he didn’t have a care in the world. And, Taeil supposed, he didn’t. 

Taeil is frozen in place, his mouth open in a soundless scream as he watches Jihoon tilt forward, his arms cartwheeling in slow motion. There is only the briefest moment between the two of them, Jihoon looking up at Taeil (a thought, unbidden and unwanted, reminds him that it’s wrong, that it should be Taeil looking up at Jihoon always, always) in shock. His eyes widen as he realises what happened – and then the car hits him.

Afterwards Taeil does chest compressions on Jihoon’s lifeless body for what seems like hours but is really only minutes, only belatedly realising that he’s never done this outside of the one first aid course he’d taken back in high school, nearly ten years ago. It’s useless, he knows it is, but Jihoon’s warmth is being leeched away into the asphalt underneath his body and Taeil can’t stand it, he can’t fucking process that Jihoon is dead and gone and not breathing, oh god, why isn’t he breathing? Why won’t he start breathing? He came back to life before, he lived, he breathed, he was _alive_ , and he’s babbling incoherently as they come to drag him off Jihoon, just an endless stream of _why won’t he wake up? Why won’t he come back to me? A month wasn’t long enough!_

Jihoon doesn’t start breathing.

//

Afterwards, he finds his way to that place again, although he takes longer this time because the way is different, and he wishes he could roll his eyes at it all but he’s too steeped in sorrow. It’s fucking déjà vu once more, his life repeating endlessly, him stuck in the loop. It’s a fucking dingy alley, and really, could you get more ironic? But he waits and waits, pacing back and forth, hoping for something to happen but knowing nothing will.

You can’t sell your soul to Hell twice, after all – it’s a one-time kind of deal, and he’d used his chance already. But he wants to go back, wants to tell whoever the fuck will listen that a month wasn’t fucking long enough and he’ll do anything to get more time with Jihoon. He’s perfectly aware that this is the third time that he’s watched Jihoon die, now, and that this time it’s for real, but he’s not processing it, has pushed it away. If he thinks about it he will panic, and he can’t afford to panic, he needs to be rational and in the right frame of mind to renegotiate the terms of his contract, not like before, not like before when he was panicky and – 

_Jihoon hadn’t woken up._

_It took three people to drag Taeil away from his body lying there on the road, his eyes closed like he was sleeping. That was probably the worst part, because Taeil thought he would just wake up. He wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t come back to Taeil, wouldn’t open his eyes and laugh at the look on Taeil’s face like he’d done a thousand times before – and when it finally hit him Taeil had stopped fighting and had gone limp, letting the strangers tug him away, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders as others surrounded Jihoon’s body._  

 _Jihoon’s_ body _. Taeil couldn’t process it, wouldn’t process it, wouldn’t accept the fact that Jihoon was dead and gone, stolen from him by a freak accident. He stared listlessly ahead as people swarmed around, ignored the police’s attempts to talk to him, his eyes darting about from place to place like he was a drug addict. And he was, in a way._  

 _It was only when they’d picked up Jihoon’s body and his arm had flopped out so listlessly, so unlike the way Jihoon had flung his arm out when he was re-enacting some story or another so many times before, that it hit Taeil with alarming clarity. Jihoon was dead. Jihoon was fucking_ dead _. Jihoon was dead and gone and he would never breathe again, would never touch Taeil again, would never tell Taeil he loved him. And then the oxygen was gone and he was gasping and shaking as sobs tore through him, leaving him ripped and empty. Someone had attempted to touch him and he had fled, pushing through the crowd of people and ignoring their cries. He’d ran until he couldn’t breathe anymore, ran until he couldn’t see for the tears, and he’d ended up in some shitty back alley littered with cigarette butts and beer cans as he sunk to his knees and tried to process._

_Jihoon. Dead. The two words could not, would not, reconcile in his head. Jihoon had – not an hour ago he’d slung his arm around Taeil’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to his forehead, and Taeil had marvelled at how warm he was. And now to be dead in the blink of an eye? How the fuck could fortune change so fast, leaving Taeil destitute and alone in the dust?_

_He’d been like that, sobbing uselessly on the filthy pavement, when the man had come. He had a perfectly plain face, with no defining features at all, nothing to make him stand out in Taeil’s memory. He’d crouched over Taeil, comforting him with soothing sounds that were probably words but made no sense in the moment. When Taeil’s tears had ceased, he’d looked up at the man in horror, the reality of his situation still omnipresent and frightening._

_“What the fuck do you want?” he asked, pulling himself into a sitting position and wiping his nose on his sleeve._

_“To help,” the man had said, looking down at Taeil with blatantly feigned interest._

_He could help, he explained. He had contacts, he had ways, he had_ connections _. And connections, apparently, were what Taeil needed in that moment, although he didn’t know it. What he really needed was Jihoon back in his arms, alive and breathing, but he knew and the man knew that could never happen._

_Until it could._

_There was a way, the man explained. There was a way, with some loopholes and trickery, for time to be reversed, for Jihoon to live again. But there was a price and a condition, and it went beyond money, like Taeil assumed. Perhaps he was delusional; perhaps this had just all been a hallucination, a horrible dream, and he would wake up with Jihoon curled around him like usual. And if it was a dream, there was no harm signing the contract the man pulled out of thin air, right? His eternal soul for another month with Jihoon. Such a small, insignificant price to pay for such a long span of time, so long that it had felt like eternity when he was faced with the prospect of a life without Jihoon. The moment he’d signed his name_ (one month, 4.2 weeks, thirty days, 720 hours, 43,200 minutes, 2,592,000 seconds, _the contract told him in bold letters – the numbers all ran together in his head) the man had smiled, rolled up the contract and touched his finger to Taeil’s forehead, and in a rush of blinding pain and white flashes and, oddly, the feeling of flying, Taeil passed out._

 _When he came to, Jihoon was laughing down at him, on the same street that he’d been on not hours before. Before Taeil could say anything – before he could warn Jihoon of what was to happen – his ankle gave way from underneath him, and he went cartwheeling towards the road, and Taeil had watched him get hit by a car for a second time._  

_But that time, he woke up._

He doesn’t know how long he spends in that alley, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, his grief and rage bubbling underneath his skin painfully. Hours, probably, but time is suspended around him, which makes him laugh more than once. Time, which was his greatest enemy in the past month, is just now deciding to be coy. How fucking ironic.

It only hits him when he makes his way back to the apartment, exhausted and drained. Ordinarily if he was getting home this late Jihoon would be there to greet him with a hug and anecdotes about his day, told excitedly like he’d been doing nothing but waiting for Taeil to come home. But there’s nothing but silence when he switches on the light, silence so terse and deafening that it crushes him under its weight. He staggers to the bedroom and collapses onto the bed, grabs Jihoon’s pillow and pulls it close to his face, inhaling the smell of him.

If he just lays here like this, in their bed with Jihoon’s essence surrounding him, he can pretend that it will all be okay. He shouldn’t find it funny, but he laughs helplessly as he realises that he should have been ready for this: this month should have been preparing for the inevitability of Jihoon’s death. Instead he’d just tried to remember, tried to drink it all in, except now when he tries to picture Jihoon staring at him in wonder in the museum, Jihoon laughing amongst the cherry blossoms, Jihoon bathing in the sunrise at the beach, all he can picture is Jihoon’s face right before he got hit by the car, surprise and shock and _knowing_. 

Taeil rolls over and buries his face in the pillow and cries helplessly. A month wasn’t long enough. A month would never be long enough. And as he cries, all he can picture is Jihoon, alive and warm and so very real, the way he’ll never be again.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm aware that this can (maybe?) be confusing so errr comment if you have no idea what tf went on, it made sense in my head but it might not on paper lmao
> 
> the prompt was: "I sold my soul to bring you back to life after your untimely death and I only have a month left with you so I’m trying to make it count"
> 
> the numbers are minutes – there's 43,200 minutes in a month, and it counts down from there :~)


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